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Should I still have kids if I’m worried about climate change?
Future Perfect
Are We Going to Tell People to Have Less Kids?
Having fewer kids is not going to magically save the climate. The major, big thing that needs to happen is how quickly our countries go off fossil fuels. I mean, we sort of need to make a good life possible for everyone whois here now and will be in the future.
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Speaker 2
T that's fair. Like, so thinking about the climate benefits as as almost sort of like bonus fringe benefits. But, ah, you know, rather than saying, hey, we're going to tell people to have fewer kids, especially in developing countries, ah, as a climate strategy,
Speaker 1
right? I mean, t put another way, for some reason this is not the case, but if, for some reason, educating girls caused climate pollution to go up, it would still be the right thing to do, yes? And we would ned to cut that climate pollution in another way. So, i mean, the the needle we need to thread right now is making the world livable and really thriveable for everyone, all the people on earth. But also for all life on earth and a staple climate. That's what we're trying to get to.
Speaker 2
An i think worth like re highlighting. I think you were sort of getting at this a bit before. The fact is that having fewer kids is not going to magically save the climate, right? If you and i and all our friends just decided to have zero kids, that is not going to save the climate. The major, big thing that needs to happen is, the major factor is how quickly our countries go off fossil fuels. Ray, yes.
Speaker 1
I mean, i think that's where we need to be focusing our efforts. And in the book, i write about the decision whether to have children, and friends and people who've contacted me who wrestle with that decision is in the middle section, which is about feelings and meaning, and not in the third section, which is about climate action and reducing omissions. Because i do think it em yes, it can be tricky to really compare those omissions in a way that's meaningful. I mean, we sort of need to make a good life possible for everyone whois here now and will be in the future.
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